Panetta Comment Telegraphs America's Present Weakness

June 22, 2009

Once again, a prominent liberal Democrat is projecting his sordid political tactics and those of his party on the opposition. In an interview for next month's issue of The New Yorker magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta asserted that former Vice-President Dick Cheney might welcome another major terrorist attack on America, as a means of validating his criticism of misguided Obama Administration "security" policies.

Cheney has had the entire liberal cabal up in arms, ever since his May 21 speech to the American Enterprise Institute in which he bluntly warned of the dangers posed by Obama's naive and ideologically driven decisions relating to the terror war. Cheney flatly explained how those policies are putting America at risk. Worse yet, at least from the liberal perspective, ever since his commentary, Cheney's popularity among the American people has risen dramatically. Consequently, the Democrats view him as a bigger danger than Al Qaeda or a nuclear Iran.

One might expect that, in response to Cheney, Panetta might have simply expounded on the new and improved safeguards implemented by Obama and his cronies since inauguration day. Instead, he sought to vilify Cheney's very motive for speaking out, despite the irrelevancy of that motive as a factor in accurately assessing the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Obama's "security" program. But Panetta and his puppet masters clearly revealed their highest priority as the need to undermine Cheney's personal credibility in the process.

Worse yet, such extreme defensiveness, and the scenario to which it alludes, likely reveals a prevailing nervousness within the Obama Administration to the effect that, in the event of a terror strike, Cheney's warnings might stick. This is a political liability that Obama knows he and his cabinet could not afford. And the magnitude of the response, indicating that they are already in "damage control" mode, is proof that the Obama facade is indeed in the initial stages of collapse.

Recalling events throughout the past sixteen years that led up to the current state of affairs, it is obvious that liberals view any and every situation primarily, perhaps exclusively, from the standpoint of its potential for political gain or loss. Bill Clinton, throughout the 1990s, was wholly indifferent to the burgeoning Islamist threat, only addressing them, on those occasions when he did so, from a perspective of their usefulness to distract America from his other personal problems.

Thus, "retaliatory" cruise missile strikes were ordered against empty terrorist camps on the same day Monica Lewinsky testified before Ken Starr, captured terror "suspects" were dealt with in the judicial swamplands of American courts, and no coherent plan was ever devised to neutralize the emerging danger. Even more deplorable were the actions of Clinton Administration officials such as Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who did not merely ignore the problem but, at the behest of Clinton, erected barriers to any effective analysis of intelligence information that might have alerted the right people to the imminence of the attacks that did indeed result.

In a similar manner, Obama's first five months have been an unqualified disaster, not just on the security front, but in every aspect of his governing. Once an observer gets past the "hope and change" platitudes, and weighs real outcomes against the empty promises that were offered in such profusion on the campaign trail and during the transition period, it is impossible to assess Obama's tenure as anything else.

The entire "bailout" ruse of last October, for which Obama and his party eagerly took credit at the time, has completely failed to produce any of its promised results while costing current and future taxpayers dearly. The bailout sequel, fraudulently presented as an "economic stimulus," has likewise proven to be every bit as much of a pork-laden sham, and an abomination to every citizen who ever held the Constitution in high regard.

Administration ventures into the auto industry, replete with the predictable squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars, are proving to be just as dismal of a failure. Car companies that had been hit hard by high gasoline prices and the recession are now being completely strangled by meddling bureaucrats who know nothing about building automobiles, but are fanatically devoted to a leftist political agenda.

Gasoline supplies for those cars remain precarious, owing to the fact that Congressional Democrats and Obama refuse to open American territories to oil exploration and drilling. So despite the government's subsidization and takeover of the formerly private auto industry, its prospects for future prosperity are slim to none.

At the onset of a summer that, in many regions of the country, has been one of the coldest on record, the American worker and businessman is being strangled and starved as his livelihood is being subordinated to phony allegations of "global warming."

The hideous face behind the mask of socialized medicine, that "unholy grail" of the liberal agenda, is beginning to be revealed to the public. Massive costs, restricted coverage, and ultimately, rationing of services that will seriously degrade the quality of care received by Americans, ultimately degrading their health and even their lives. As a result, it is no longer resonating with the public as it did when presented in flowery campaign speeches, adorned in those banalities of "hope and change."

Despite Leon Panetta's shameless finger pointing, it must be remembered that the Democrats, his party, were the ones who sought to brazenly exploit catastrophe, whether natural or man-made, as political ammunition. From the Oklahoma City bombing to the Mississippi River floods to Hurricane Katrina, liberals can be counted upon to infuse their political message into any occasion of human suffering.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel characterizes this as good strategy and the proper exploitation of an opportunity. Despite having been appointed as the nation's intelligence chief, as a liberal Panetta's first devotion will be to the political apparatus of his party. So it should come as no surprise that Panetta would expect similar behavior from a political rival.

Many on the right are waiting for the American public to find their way past the fraud of the liberal press, and awaken to the abysmal realities of the Obama/Democrat agenda. No single event would do so more quickly than another major terrorist attack. And the Obama White House is sensitive to the dire significance of such a possibility, if only for fear of its political fallout.

What if national security has been as thoroughly compromised by this Administration as the free market? Leon Panetta, by his excessive and inflammatory words, has shown his awareness of the dangerous game that is being played with the country's security by blinded liberal ideologues. Americans should read between the lines and be very afraid.

Christopher G. Adamo is a resident of southeastern Wyoming and has been involved in state and local politics for many years. He writes for several prominent conservative websites, and has written for regional and national magazines. He is currently the Chief Editorial Writer for The Proud Americans, an advocacy group for America’s seniors, and for all Americans. His contact information and article archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com, and he can be followed on Twitter @CGAdamo.